What I Should Be Doing

What I should be doing right now is studying. My final is Friday, and it’s my final final for the veterinary assistant refresher before I go into the veterinary technology program next month. I need to come as close to acing it as I possibly can, but my brain is fried. Kaput. Done for. Instead, here I am again, for the third time today, which is a record for me, especially as I’ve been inconsistent in blog posts for quite awhile! And, I’m playing with yarn again. Naturally.

The children, thankfully, are in bed and actually staying there, which itself is miraculous. Bryony is generally put to bed and is out of it again within ten minutes. Tonight she isn’t giving anyone any trouble.

Unlike my little finger weaving experiment, which is giving me tons, as if to make up for Bryony’s lack. I’ve frogged and restarted several times now since last night. I’ll get about twenty rows in, lose something somewhere, and in my lack of experience, I can’t yet simply unweave back to the mistake and correct it, because I’m not familiar enough with what I’m doing to even recognize where the mistake is, only that there is one. So, at present, once again I’m looking at a complete restart. If nothing else, I will be an expert on how to start a finger weaving project. My expertise in finishing one, however, is very much in doubt. At the rate things are going, I’m far more likely to take the whole mess and pitch it across the room.

It’s possible my problem is my choice of material. I used embroidery floss for my first experiment, and only twelves strands for that. While it was pretty, it didn’t look the way it was supposed to, so somewhere I made a mistake that I didn’t recognize, and that probably came about because 6-strand embroidery floss is made for the express purpose of being able to separate it, which means that in a project such as finger weaving, it’s not really a wise choice. Eventually, as you’re picking up threads, those threads have separated enough that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between one thread and the next one.

So, for the second experiment, which is the one pictured in yesterday’s post, I decided to try perle cotton. It’s a three color strap utilizing 36 strands, 12 of each color. I may have been too ambitious here. It’s possible I should have stuck with worsted weight yarn and fewer strands until I was better at this, something that’s easy for me to see mistakes. Problem is, I’m a big fan of small. No, really.

In beadwork, the smaller the beads, the more detail you can put into the image you’re creating. For the computer savvy, it’s like pixels. If you have a 32 inch tv, the smaller your pixels, the sharper, more defined the image on the screen, right? Well, it’s the same with yarn. The thicker the yarn, the clunkier the project becomes. Some projects, obviously, are meant for clunky yarn. This is not one of them, thus the perle cotton. Once again, I’m running before I walk. The downside of this is the constant frogging and restarting. But there is an upside: if I keep at it, I will eventually get it right and have a strap I can be proud of. There’s my motivation.